I’ve blown up the heater, again. Both of them. First the ducted heating, then the little beige buzzy thing I set up to replace it. That went within ten minutes of me turning it on, so I suppose this means we really will need to get the fire going tonight. (Not a tragedy. I so adore the warmth and romance of a wood fire, don’t you?)

I thought I’d do a bit of a waffle session on the blog, today. The ‘soft girl’ has been punishing you all with philosophical musings for quite a few days now, and let’s face it— some days are absolutely made for waffling. Today is one of them. Friday! My favorite day of the week.

Friday is like a deep breath, isn’t it? Perhaps it’s even a gasp, for some, like breaching the surface of a way too deep week of work. The end of the working week is a comfort that most of us cling to as a means of reward, celebration, and escape. And, by most of us, I mean…me. I’ve always loved that about Friday, the feeling of peace and closure attached to it.

But I also hate that. Why should we (human folk) feel the need to rush through life, just so we can make it to that place where all the good things live. Family. Me time. Time to work for ‘the self’, rather than for ‘the self of someone else’.

I dream of the day we all slot into our perfect puzzle pieces. The day we all stand up and say, actually no. I feel there is something more for me, something that will light my soul on fire and have me feeling just a little less excited about Friday. About the weekend.

And, for the first time in a good little while, I am at a cafe, sinking into a booth seat, quietly reflecting on the peace of it all.

I’m the soft girl today. She’s the part of me that I choose—quite fiercely so—because the soft girl is anything but soft. She’s gentle and kind, and yet she’s capable and strong. And she’s safe, the part of me that feels most like ‘home’.

She made me buy a book, today, the soft girl did. It’s beautiful. A paperback, with a silvery-white cover and the title: Women Who Run With The Wolves: Contacting the Power of The Wild Woman, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. A quote from Maya Angelou decorates the bottom. It says: ‘Everyone who can read should read this book.’

The book had whispered to me from the shelf—or, perhaps the soft girl had whispered me to it, I can’t be entirely certain. And even though it was only visible via the spine, I plucked it quickly from its little cave and read the blurb.

I wasn’t going to buy a book. It wasn’t on my radar, not at all. But as soon as I read what this beautiful, silvery book was about…the soft girl touched me and began whispering me her careful words: ‘This book will change your life.’

So.

I bought it. It sits beside me, in my laptop bag, waiting for me to breathe it in— which I will do tonight, as soon as I have found a cup of steaming tea and a nice big blanket.

I suppose it might be a wonderful book.

And, if it is, if the whispers of the soft girl were true in all their wistfully tender encouragement…my life is about to change.

This is a little experiment where I will write. And I will not stop. Until I feel it’s time. Time, it’s an abstract concept, don’t you think? It’s not of the world, but also, it is. In an odd kind of way.

Life.

What is life, I often wonder. It’s the little things taken for granted. It’s the flowers we walk past every day, without looking. It’s me. It’s you. It’s us. It’s them. All of us living in a world where everyone else is so easily wrong. All of us looking for something more. Better. Free-er. Right-er.

A little bit lost, most of us. A little bit bamboozled. Unsure. Unsure and beautiful. Unsure and strange. Unsure and almost there, but never quite there because ‘there’ will never be a place we can find on a map. And if we do happen to find it, we don’t want it anymore because ‘there’ always looks better from ‘here’.

Nothing’s certain. Nothing’s true. Nothing’s right, nothing can be. Ever. Not when all our eyes are made from different shades of wonder. Different shades of serious. Different shades of true.

But one thing I do know is this. Life is beautiful. Precious. Mine. Yours. Ours. It’s safe and it’s unsafe and isn’t that the point? Isn’t that the beautiful part? The not knowing. The being here, the never really knowing where ‘here’ is?

Her fingers find the soft of her collar bone and drift upward: chin, cheek, forehead— every part of her, delicate. Like a bird, she thinks. The mirror shows her nothing new, and yet everything has changed.

Everything.

Because for the first time in her life, her beauty becomes her. This time, it hasn’t found her through the hungry eyes of a man, or through the careless words of a well-meaning shop assistant.

(Hello, you lot. 🙂 I just wanted to take a moment to break the fourth wall and say: I’ve so adored meeting you all here, every day in May. You are one of my happiest reasons. Thanks for being such a lovely part of this perfect new day. xx Brooke)